


Eavesdropping

by Resistance



Category: NASCAR RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, teenage Chase is adorable, there's Senior/Bill but as backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 21:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10670865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resistance/pseuds/Resistance
Summary: Ryan meets a new friend and runs into some issues. Chase narrates.





	Eavesdropping

**Author's Note:**

> This is set around two races in April of 2011 in Richmond, Virginia.   
> [The K&N East race was Thursday.](http://www.racing-reference.info/race/2011_Blue_Ox_100/E) [The Sprint Cup race was Saturday.](http://www.racing-reference.info/race/2011_Crown_Royal_Presents_the_Matthew_and_Daniel_Hansen_400/W)
> 
> Fifteen-year-old Chase and seventeen-year-old Darrell ran a full K&N series that year. Seventeen-year-old Ryan only ran a few races in that series because he was racing a little bit of everywhere that year. Chase and Ryan "grew up together" (their words) at the tracks because their fathers were drivers.
> 
> Anything in first person is from Chase's point of view. Scenes are out of order for dramatic effect. Ask questions if you have any!

**_Friday April 29, 2011. Sprint Cup practice, the 88 garage._ **

“Who are you flippin’ out over now?”

His voice startled the hell out of me and I whipped around and prayed to all that was holy that my cheeks weren’t as bright pink as I knew they were, “I’m not flippin’ out over anyone!” I protested, much too loudly. I think my voice even squeaked. I don’t know how Dale didn’t burst out laughing.

Somehow, he didn’t even crack a smile, “I’m just your favorite brother, why should you tell me anything?” He heaved a sigh and sat down on the edge of the counter. “But that Blaney kid has grown up nice, hasn’t he?”

I groaned loudly, “No, he’s grown up to be an asshole. Did you _see_ him Thursday?! Complete asshole.”

“Because he beat you and then ditched you after the race?” Dale ventured, carefully parroting my complaints from the days before.

I rolled my eyes, “Obviously! I even waited for, like, _ten_ minutes.”

Dale nodded, sagely, “Complete asshole. But you’re not flippin’ out over him.”

“I’m not flippin’ out at all, but if I were it would _not_ be over Ryan fuckin’ Blaney!” Of course, I said that much too loud.

A voice from the doorway chimed in, “I can verify he’s not flipping out over me because I know who he _is_ flipping out over.”

For the second time in the same hour, I whipped around and glared, “If you dare—”

Ryan held his hands up, “I wouldn’t. Just sayin’….” He grinned at me.

Dale turned a smirk on my friend, “So what’s your price?” I tried to protest, but Dale waved me off, taking a few steps towards Ryan, “Everyone has a price, teenagers especially. So, what is it? How many strings do I need to pull?”

Ryan slowly lost his grin and bit his lip, as if he was seriously considering this, “Actually… I came over here to kinda ask you a favor. I’m willing to sell Chase out for the favor.”

Dale slung an arm around his shoulder, “Come, we’ll talk, young Blaney.” He began to lead him into the back offices when I tried to step in front.

“No, no, no. You can’t buy him! I don’t have as many people as he does, but I know some people. Give me a chance to buy your silence.”

Ryan thought about this as he looked between Dale and I. After a long agonizing moment, he raised his eyebrows, “Okay, I’m open for bids. I need an all access pass for someone.”

I frowned, “I mean I can give him my pass, they don’t look too closely. But Dale, yeah, Dale could probably get them their _own_. I don’t have those kinda people, I didn’t get the last name.”

Ryan rolled his eyes, “You’ve got _a_ last name around here.”

“Yeah, but it’s not _that one_. People don’t do things for me. But! You owe me ‘cause you ditched me on Thursday.” I pointed at him, trying to put a threat behind something that was utterly hollow. I ditched him all the time, so I really didn’t have a leg to stand on.

“Yeahbut, I have a _really_ good reason. That’s why I need the pass.”

My eyes went wide, “And you can’t ask your dad?”

Ryan shook his head, “I really can’t, so…”

“Secret for secret.” I pointed at him again. He knew too much about me, I hoped he would reason that his half-secret was equal to the things he actually knew about me.

Ryan nodded, “That’s fair.” He looked to Dale, to see if he’d uphold our usual bargaining chip.

Dale had been looking between us and shook his head, “I don’t want to know, do I?” I shook my head quickly to confirm that he didn’t, and he continued, “I’ll get you the pass. What’s the guy’s name?”

“Darrell Wallace, Jr."

 

**_Thursday, April 28, 2011. K &N East series, post-race pit road._ **

“Not bad.” Ryan held his hand out as if he owned the world, or at the very least the track they were standing in. “I’m Ryan.”

Darrell had always held himself to be an articulate and overall friendly guy, but he found himself annoyingly speechless in that moment. He stared at the hand and the individual attached to it far too long to be socially acceptable.

Ryan frowned, letting his hand drop, not bothering to hide his irritation, “Right then. Guess not.”

“Shit. I mean, thanks.” He shook his head hard, “Sorry, I’m just kinda… y’know, hard race. Stuff like that.” Mentally, he was kicking himself, but he managed to keep that off his face for the most part.

Ryan got a little bit of his smile back, “You wanna try that handshake, introduction thing again?” He offered his hand out again, but his whole body had a cheeky tone to it.

For the life of him, Darrell wished he could think up something suave to do. If ever in his life he needed a smooth move, it was just then. The problem was, he was exhausted after having just kicked ass in a race and he couldn’t think fast enough to come up with something smooth. Failing that, he shook Ryan’s hand and offered, “I’m Darrell.”

Ryan held his hand a little too firmly and shook it a little too long and Darrell’s stomach was flip-flopping and if he had been anywhere else but in the middle of a NASCAR track still loaded with drivers and fans, he would have kissed Ryan right then and there. He wouldn’t have said he was a master of reading signals, but the ones Ryan was sending out were damn near neon signs. He could read those.

“Somewhere private,” He managed to mumble, still holding onto Ryan’s hand.

Ryan nodded and glanced around for a moment. Clearly getting his bearings, he gestured that Darrell follow him before he started off across the infield, making a beeline for a destination that made perfect sense to him, still walking as if he had every right to be wherever he was. Darrell couldn’t help but admire that as he walked. Well, that and his ass. God bless the firesuit, they gave everyone a good ass and really showed off a great one.

Ryan pulled open a door and gestured Darrell in ahead of him. The room had a few chairs and a strange assortment of matchbox cars strewn about it. The one large window had a curtain, which he now drew closed. Darrell locked the door and turned to face Ryan.

“Hey.” Brilliant.

Ryan smirked, “Hey.” He moved closer to Darrell, “You wanna kiss me like I wanna kiss you?”

Darrell sighed, grateful the first move was made, “Hell yes.”

“Good. Do it.”

He didn’t need any more prodding than that. His arms went around Ryan’s waist, pulling him against his chest as his lips descended on his, taking exactly the kiss he’d been thinking about since they’d met. It was as utterly overwhelming as he knew it would be.

 

**_Friday, April 29, 2011. Sprint Cup qualifying, private viewing area._ **

“Trade you secret for secret.” Ryan was leaning back in the box with his feet propped up on the railing. He couldn’t see the track from how he was siting, but that didn’t really matter. His dad hadn’t done anything worth paying attention to in years. That might be mean, but it’s true. But the box was private and he always tried to hold an air like he owned the place. I was used to it and I wasn’t impressed. But today he had another air, and it was weird.

I shrugged, “I don’t really have any new ones.” That was true for the most part, I told Ryan pretty much everything that was worth being called a secret, even the stuff that Dale didn’t know. I leaned on the railing, my eyes on the track below. I wasn’t really watching the cars, Dale had already had his run and wasn’t starting well. Anyone else worth watching I already knew would be starting better than Dale, but wouldn’t be pole. But looking down there was a fine excuse not to look at Ryan. He had a weird look on his face and it made me uncomfortable.

Ryan shrugged, “Then can I just tell you some shit and you swear you won’t tell anyone?” His voice had a slight twinge of nervousness that stood out to me loud and clear. I looked over to him, anything that made him sound like that, I definitely wanted to hear.

I nodded, “Sure. Well, does Dale count as ‘anyone’?”

Ryan considered this for a minute and then shook his head, “He won’t tell anyone. By anyone, I mean, my dad.”

I wrinkled my nose, “Course not. What don’t you wanna tell your dad? I thought you guys talked a lot.”

Ryan sighed heavily, “Yeah, we do. About racing and shit like that. But this… he’s not gonna get this….” He put his feet down and sat up, turning towards me. He had his serious face on and I tried to replicate it. “So… on Thursday…”

“Y’mean after you ditched me?” He gave me such a look, that I held my hands up, “Go on, I won’t interrupt.”

He settled back in his seat, “So after the race… I went up to congratulate the guy that won. I figured that was nice and all. See, I’d seen him before, like we’ve raced each other for a while, but I didn’t really know him. But damn he’s _fine_ , so I thought I’d just go say hey and maybe get food or something? But I go up and put my hand out and he just looks at me. Like he’s never seen a hand before!”

I couldn’t help myself, “Maybe he could tell where that thing’s been.”

Ryan shot me another look, “Fuck you. Anyway, I was gonna just y’know walk away, but then, I dunno, he woke up and like smiled and fuck, man. He shook my hand and like… I don’t even know what happened. Next thing I know we’re in the family room and I pulled the curtain and he’s got me against the wall and… _fuck, man_.”

“Hold up. You’re tellin’ me you got with a guy that barely introduced himself to you?”

Ryan paused for a minute, but then nodded, “Pretty much.”

“Was it good?”

“Not that your virginal ass can get it, but _damn_.” He put his feet back up on the railing, smirking again, “He’s fuckin’ gorgeous, but it was just… fuck, man. He’s got these hands—fuckin’ huge hands and you know what _that_ means….”

“That you bottomed for him.”

Ryan smirked even more, “Fuck yeah, and I’d do it again.”

“Well, that’s good to know.” The voice from the doorway was completely unfamiliar to me, but I only needed to see Ryan’s reaction to know exactly who he was. I had never seen him turn so bright red as long as I’d known him. He snapped his eyes shut and leaned his head back, probably praying that the floor would swallow him up.  

It took all my composure to just let out the short snicker that I did when I really wanted to laugh out loud. I let Ryan continue with his silent prayer and decided to fill the silence with something slightly less awkward. I stood up and turned to face the guy and to be honest, I was surprised.

NASCAR had been doing that ‘Drive for Diversity’ stuff for a while, but I hadn’t really payed attention to it, except when I had to listen to my dad rant against it. I guess he had a point when he said that people shouldn’t get a leg up because of their color, but it was hard to argue when I was sitting in a private box I didn’t pay for and had free run of tracks I didn’t belong in since I was a toddler because of my family. I tried not to deal with that kind of thing. If you can race me, I’ll race you. That’s how I do things. I try not to listen to my dad too much, because even I could tell he’s a racist and I didn’t want to agree with any of that stuff on principle.

I hope I didn’t look surprised for too long before I held my hand out, “I’m Chase.”

He smiled at me and I could get what Ryan was saying about his look. He shook my hand, without any of the delay that Ryan had mentioned. “Sorry to eavesdrop. I’m Darrell. They call me Bubba.”

I snorted a laugh at that before I could stop myself, “You don’t look like a Bubba.”

He shrugged, “Blame my sister. She gave it to me when I was born.”

“Cool kids get nicknames. Losers get called by their birth name.” I gestured Darrell into one of the seats near the windows. “Like _this_ loser here, who’s just Ryan.”

His cheeks were still neon pink, but he managed to open his eyes and lift his head up just enough to acknowledge that we were talking about him, “Shut the fuck up, _Clyde_.”

It was Darrell’s turn to snort a laugh, “Your given name is Clyde?”

I sighed, “Middle name. I’m a junior. But _that_ nickname was already taken, so I got Chase.”

“I’m a junior too. And hey, speaking of people named Junior….” Darrell raised an eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.

I glanced at Ryan, but he was still pretending like he wasn’t there, so I jumped in again, “Yeah, I kinda expected him to give the pass to Ryan, but I guess he wanted to give it to you personally?”

“Yeah, and that’s cool, but… why?” His eyebrows were still up.

“Oh, sorry. Dale’s my brother. Ryan and I have known each other since… we were practically toddlers, so he asked to get the pass for you and Dale has people. Way more people than I have. I actually don’t have people, other than Dale. I was gonna give you my pass ‘cause I don’t really use it, but I don’t think you coulda used my pass. They don’t check close, but, uh, they’re not blind.” I shrugged. I wasn’t sure if that was honest or racist. I hoped he would tell me if I crossed the line. It was hard to tell.

Darrell laughed, “Yeah, I appreciate having my own. They always look at me a little more closely than they would at you.” He shrugged, but I could see that it wasn’t a real shrug, it bothered him. But he kept talking, “But… Dale Senior was my favorite driver when I was younger and… I didn’t know he had two sons driving right now? Was that rude?”

Ryan snorted, “Chase wouldn’t know rude if it smacked him in the ass. And he forgets that we didn’t all grow up here. His dad and Dale Junior’s dad… bumped fenders…”

I groaned and I was probably blushing, “Thanks, Ryan. That was classy. Dale Senior was my papa, my dad is Bill Elliott.”

His eyebrows went back up, “Dale Earnhardt was…. gay?”

I nodded, “Yeah, or bi… I didn’t ask him and he didn’t share that kinda stuff with me. I was five when he died. He had a bunch of kids, but yeah, he and my dad were… a thing.”

“Wild.” Darrell shook his head. “So, you’re telling me that everyone _will_ stare at me for being black but they _won’t_ stare at me for being gay?”

“Pretty much. There’s a lotta that. The gay stuff. Not in front of the fans or the press. They don’t know anything. But around here? Yeah, everyone is in everyone’s business. Us kids of drivers, we’ve seen everything. You get used to it, and you learn to deal. Like _never_ go into the 11 garage without knocking unless you like porn.”

“Gay porn?” Darrell’s eyebrows still hadn’t come down.

Ryan turned his head towards him, “You seriously thought we were the only ones?”

“Well, yeah.”

“We’re so not.” Ryan sat up slowly, leaning into Darrell, “By the way, hey.”

Darrell’s eyebrows finally relaxed and he smiled, “Hey.”  He leaned in and pressed his lips against Ryan’s.

Jealous, I turned away at this point. Not because I wanted either one of them, but just because I was jealous as hell that they both got it so easily. Fifteen-year-old me never would have believed that I would get what I want in just five years. Then again, to fifteen-year-old me, five years was an eternity.

 

**_Saturday, April 30, 2011. Sprint Cup pre-race, private viewing area._ **

“There you are. Where’s your boy?” I was trying to sound casual, but I doubt I did. I had expected him to be track level for pre-race, we usually were. But after wandering around for a while, I took a guess on where he might be hiding.

Ryan shrugged, “He said he’d be back for the race. I don’t even know if he’s my boy or not.” He had his feet up on the railing again, but he wasn’t as calm and casual as he wanted to look. I knew him that well.

“You were joined at the hip all day yesterday. He actually wanted to talk to you by choice.” I dropped into the seat next to him, but my eyes were on the pit road down below us. There were a lot of people milling around, almost like ants from up where we were. It was hard now not to notice that pretty much every face down there was white.

Ryan shook his head, “I dunno…. It was good.”

I scoffed, “You already told me that. You’re just braggin’ now.”

He gave me a look out of the corner of his eye, “I don’t mean that. All of it. I just like being around him and talking to him. He’s got a driver’s eye, like a really good one. He’s gonna be great around here someday.” He sighed heavily, “I just… I dunno.”

I took a long drink from the coke bottle in my hands before I spoke, “Can I ask you something without me lookin’ like a jackass?”

Ryan snorted, “Probably not, you always look like a jackass.”

Disappointingly, I didn’t have a Nerf ball in reach, so I threw the cap of my coke bottle at him. It bounced off his shoulder and disappeared into the corner of the room, but Ryan didn’t flinch. “Fuck you. But look, I was just wonderin’…. The sighin’ and the ‘I dunno’… is that ‘cause he’s black?”

Ryan turned to look at me so fast, his feet fell off the railing, “No! Why would you say that? I’m not racist!” He wasn’t yelling, but his tone was sharper than I’d ever heard it aimed in my direction.

I held my hands up quickly, “I’m not sayin’ you are! I was just…” I shrugged, “I was just thinkin’ that if I was gonna bring him home to meet my dad…” I shook my head quickly.

“Well, your dad is a racist. And…. weirdly, kinda homophobic, too. For someone that…” He gestured into space, but I knew what he was talking about.

“He’s not. It’s just… back in his day, you kept that behind closed doors. I mean I never saw them… like kiss or anything. Never really saw them be… like they loved each other. I knew they did, but we didn’t see it. They used to scream at each other, actually. I dunno. He just doesn’t like PDAs, that’s all. I think… maybe like… he didn’t live in a time where it was okay… kinda like now, I mean pretty much okay. Maybe it’s like…. jealousy. I dunno.”

Ryan nodded and settled back into his faux-casual position, his hackles going down again. “Yeah, I know what you mean. My dad… he talks about that a lot. Like how ‘back in the day’, it wasn’t like that…. He doesn’t like it. Guys being… free in the garage. He thinks it’s gross. He, um… he made me promise him I wouldn’t be ‘like that’. And I did.” He glanced over to me and then back out the window, “But I _am_ ‘like that’, so…”

“Wait, your dad made you promise not to be gay?”

He didn’t look at me, but he nodded, “He thinks they’re ruining the sport. All the….” He shook his head, he couldn’t even say the word that we’d both heard our dads use.

I knew it took a lot for him to be that honest with me and I knew I had to exchange the favor. “Kinda weird, right? I mean I’m sittin’ here thinkin’ that I couldn’t bring Darrell home ‘cause he’s black and my dad would flip out over that, but he wouldn’t care that he’s a guy. But you’re thinkin’ that your dad wouldn’t care that he’s black, but he’d flip that he’s a guy.”

“Weird, yeah.” Ryan’s voice was flat. “I dunno if it’s fair to like get serious about him when I don’t know if I can ever introduce him to my dad as my boyfriend. It’s 2011, we shouldn’t have to be all closeted and I don’t want to make him do that just after we tell him that he doesn’t have to be like that around here.”

“Maybe you should let him decide that.” The voice from the doorway behind us echoed my thoughts so perfect that I jumped at the same time Ryan did.

“Fuckin’ stop doing that! Who let you in here?!” Ryan snapped, getting to his feet.

Darrell grinned, “Dale told me you were up here. We’re old buddies now.” He was trying not to laugh, but failing. Glancing over at Ryan’s face, I understood why. His look was hysterical.

 Ryan advanced on him in three large quick strides and shoved him against the wall beside the door, “Eavesdropping sucks and you’ve gotta stop doing it!”

That only made Darrell grin all the more, “Stop talking about me behind my back.”

“No! All we do up here is talk about people behind their backs.” Ryan countered.

“Well, that’s better than what I was wondering if you were doing up here.” Darrell glanced between me and Ryan, in time to see both of us wrinkle our noses in unison.

I stepped in quickly, “Look, man, you do _not_ need to worry ‘bout me like that. Coulda. Don’t want him.”

Ryan scoffed, “Couldn’ta. I don’t want him. Never did. It’d be like getting with Erin or Emma.” He shuddered, shaking his head violently. “No thank you.”

Darrell leaned around Ryan and closer to me, “Was that women in general when you’re Irish or are those specific women?”

“His sisters.”

“Ah, thanks.” He leaned back into Ryan with a smirk, “Good to know. So…. what was that about me being your boyfriend?”


End file.
